Elon Musk Wants To Get Into Wireless Phones And He’s Probably Not Going To Have A Good Time

from the disruption…by-assholes dept

There have been rumblings for a while that America’s richest and most annoying white supremacist, Elon Musk, really wants to get into the wireless phone business. His lobbyists have been making noise in support for broader phone unlocking rules, and there’ve been several IPO-fluffing press leaks over the last few months indicating they’re keen on building a Starlink phone.

They’ve also leaked word to Semafor, likely in part to boost Musk’s sagging and disastrous IPO, that Musk’s companies are on the hunt for spectrum allowing them to offer wireless phone service in more dense, urban markets (since Starlink LEO satellite lacks the capacity for that):

“SpaceX, which is trying to fill a hole in its airwaves crucial for a full-service wireless network, has been hunting for spectrum that works well in cities and dense areas, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is considering buying competitors to acquire the spectrum or competing at a government auction set for next year, the people said.”

There have been some rumblings that Musk Corp could try to acquire T-Mobile, which they’re already partnering with on a hybrid LEO satellite and cellular phone offering that lets you use Starlink in remote areas for calls and cellular when in more dense locations.

One of several problems for Musk is his highly-fraudulent IPO is cratering, adding additional financial pressure to the mix. Massive acquisitions, which you’d probably need to do this effectively, are costly, debt-riddled, notoriously time-consuming and resource intensive.

SpaceX’s IPO promised that Starlink would quickly jump from 10 million current subscribers to 300 million or more in very short order. That’s pretty much impossible with just Starlink (despite some delusional numbers being tossed around by Jason Calacanis and friends). Even if you acquired T-Mobile (142.6 million subscribers) it would take years and a ton of good luck to get anywhere close.

Telecom is also a massively cash-intensive business to jump into. Spectrum, tower leases, backhaul is all annoying, complicated, pricey, and time consuming to get right. Assuming 100% competency you’d be talking years before any sort of meaningful traction, by which time they could be facing less Musk-friendly regulators at the FCC.

Companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast also just inherently loathe competition, and can be quite formidable when they join forces to box out any new competitors. The highway of telecom history is littered with corpses of folks who believed they could break through the monopolistic, government-coddled logjam (Dish Network being just the latest). As is the highway of very deep-pocketed companies trying to offer their own smartphones (Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft).

You’ve also got other companies like Amazon considering similar phone networks. Musk’s companies, especially Starlink, also are notorious for refusing to have competent customer service, something they’d need to excel at to disrupt cellular and gain fast market share. And this is all while Musk continues to show signs of massive instability as he dedicates the majority of his time to being a bizarre and unhinged egomaniacal racist on his personal propaganda website.

Though Musk does have some things in his favor. Like an army of cultists who’ll praise his barely available and expensive phone service no matter how clumsy or half-completed any network build is. People in the extended Roganverse already think the costly and congested Starlink network is akin to magic, and the marketing hype surrounding a Musk phone would be utterly deafening.

That doesn’t naturally equate to success in competently challenging some of America’s biggest and most politically powerful monopolies in brick-and-mortar reality, though.

Filed Under: competition, disruption, elon musk, phone, spectrum, wireless

Companies: spacex, t-mobile